Imaging of amyloid-beta plaques (including amyloid, amyloid-beta peptides) and other pathology and anatomical features in the retina or brain is often unobtainable without the use of specialized contrast agents typically used in PET scan procedures. Imaging of amyloid-beta plaques (including amyloid in other forms such as amyloid peptides) located in the retina/ocular fundus at large are not visible with any retinal imaging modalities with the sole exception of curcumin reflectance and/or fluorescence imaging (and other contrast agents), and has been performed in vivo only in animals but not in live humans.
The present invention can be utilized in an OCT system that utilizes optical coherence tomography (OCT), analysis of deposits in discrete layers of OCT, and/or multispectral/hyperspectral imaging in combination with proprietary spectral wavelength selection, spectral analysis, and image processing and/or in combination with contrast agents such as curcumin to identify amyloid in the retina rendering it visible to the clinician.
The present invention differs from other medical imaging apparatuses in that traditional OCT and current fundus imaging techniques do not afford for the visualization of amyloid in the retina. The present invention solves this problem through a combination of optical technology in combination with spectral analysis, retinal layer segmentation and image processing, and also can be utilized with the use of a contrast agent via analysis of fluorescence and/or reflectance. By operating OCT and multispectral imaging devices at specific wavelengths allows the spectral signature of amyloid-beta plaques to be obtained from the data set utilizing image processing, either with or without a contrast agent. Further segmentation can be performed via spectral analysis and/or OCT to determine location of deposits in the retina.
The present invention more specifically is an apparatus and method that can be utilized for identifying one or more plaques in a plurality of discrete OCT retinal layers.